[Mitch44]

As the saying goes; "no feet, no horse" and I'll add to that by saying no horse, no trainer and or no trainer stat. Many races have capable trainers but in a 12 horse field there are going to be 11 losers. Every day better % trainers and jocks get beat by lesser one's because it about what the horse is capable of doing. The best trainer in the world can't get something out of a horse that just isn't there. No different than buying expensive horses make a winner.(Green Monkey 16 million)

I don't believe 90% horse is an overstatement or a simplification.

It takes a few months of training just to get them into condition to enter a race. There are many reasons cheap horses get up into finishes that are above their pay grade. And one of the biggest is the match-up in the race and form. Mohaymen is a much better horse than the horse that finished 2nd and 3rd in the Fl. Derby. I'll take him over those two always and probably win 9 out of10 of them.

Trainer stats can be useful information in certain situation as all trainers aren't created equal with layoffs, stretch outs and even then their wrong at least 80% of the time.
With horses their record is available and they can be compared against their competition. With trainers their records are not put in context and are extremely deceptive. A trainer can have a 18% record and perhaps all his wins came from one good horse or it was earned in turf sprints and todays conditions are a dirt route. If we had complete data on their records we could make better informed decisions but even than they'll lose 70% or more of the time. Another huge weakness of trainers stat is that their available to everyone now so what edge was there for the most part is gone.

This really hit home to me back in the early 90's at the Sartin seminar at Saratoga. They gave out past performances of a race and blacken out all the unimportant things that players have a hang up with that is meaningless to the race. Stuff like weight, all names jock, trainers owners and even the horses names along with age and sex. The only thing left was actual running lines of the race to include surface ,dis. ........ We worked the race and came up with the winner. A very valuable lesson. A handicapper doesn't need trainer stats to win or to determine who can finish or to determine horses capability and limitations.

Stubborn resistance to change causes more loses than anything. Everyone has their own beliefs and if you believe in weight on, weight off, jockey on or jockey off etc. and its working for you then by all means don't change a thing.

Mitch44